Albany Law School Welcomes New Faculty

Albany Law School is delighted to welcome three new full-time faculty members and two visiting professors for the 2026-2027 academic year. Together they bring a wealth of experience and expertise spanning civil litigation, housing justice, community economic development, legal writing, and academic and bar success that will enrich our scholarly community and student experience.   

Professor Michele H. Berger – Assistant Professor of Law, Academic and Bar Success Support

Michele H. Berger joined Albany Law School as a Visiting Professor in 2025. Her teaching focuses on legal skills development, academic resilience, and inclusive strategies to support diverse law student populations.
Before joining Albany Law, Professor Berger served as Assistant Dean for Academic and Bar Success at Charleston School of Law, where she established and implemented initiatives that greatly improved bar passage rates and academic outcomes. She also held faculty and leadership roles at Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law, Gonzaga University School of Law, and Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
Professor Berger began her legal career working in civil litigation before making the jump to in-house counsel roles, with a primary focus on corporate transactions, contract drafting and negotiation, regulatory compliance, and legal department management. She is licensed to practice law in New York and California (inactive) and graduated cum laude from Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
She is a recipient of the 2025–26 AccessLex/AASE Faculty Scholar Program Grant for scholarship in progress. 

 

Professor Eirik Cheverud – Assistant Professor of Law 
Professor Cheverud is an attorney, activist, and scholar. He joined Albany Law as a Visiting Assistant Professor in August 2025. His scholarship investigates

how the historical development of language impacts U.S. legal practice. He is an expert in legal writing, statutory interpretation, judicial use of dictionaries, and legal typography.
Professor Cheverud served twelve years as an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor, fighting to enforce and preserve workers’ federal employment rights. Professor Cheverud collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice on ERISA cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and under President Biden’s administration, he represented the Department as part of a White House Task Force on reproductive-rights rulemaking and litigation. Professor Cheverud is a recognized expert on ERISA and other federal benefits laws.
Professor Cheverud also maintains a robust, movement-oriented pro bono practice. He spearheaded two important cases challenging prosecutorial and police misconduct during and following the Ferguson Uprising. Now he provides legal support for activists and demonstrators across the United States, with a particular focus on protecting activists’ rights to speech and protest.
Professor Cheverud’s past scholarship has received judicial and academic attention. Professor Wayne R. LaFave cited Professor Cheverud’s coauthored paper about municipal arrest authority in his Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment. And New York State courts have adopted Professor Cheverud’s characterization of internet speech—which he described as having a “freewheeling, anything-goes writing style”—for online defamation claims.
Professor Cheverud graduated magna cum laude from New York Law School in 2011. He hails from St. Louis, Missouri, and he worked as a jazz musician before turning to the law. His interests include writing, philosophy, history, typography, music, and baseball.

Professor Jasmine Norman – Assistant Professor of Law 
 

The Honorable Jasmine Norman returns to Albany Law School after her Visiting Professor position during the 2021-2022 academic year.  She currently serves as a City Court Judge for the City of Watervliet. As a sitting Judge, she oversees all civil court matters, housing matters, city code matters, and traffic court.    
Prior to her current position, Judge Norman was a Deputy General Counsel with the New York State Office of Cannabis Management where she developed the Office’s administrative proceeding process for violations of licensing regulations, supervised senior attorneys in litigation strategies for administrative hearings, and managed part of the legal portfolio including drafting laws and regulations, interpreting statutes and pursuing litigation.  
She has also served in the litigation unit with the New York State Department of State as well as the Schenectady Conflict Defender’s Office. She is currently on the Albany County Attorneys for the Children Panel and serves as a Visiting Judge in Capital Region City Courts.  
Judge Norman is a graduate of the University at Buffalo School of Law where she was the 2014 Suzanne E. Tompkins Women, Children, and Social Justice Advocacy Fellowship Award Recipient and the Minority Bar Association of Western New York Commencement Award Recipient.  

Professor Todd Arena – Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Director, Community Economic Development Clinic

Todd Arena joined Albany Law School as a Community Economic Development Clinic Staff Attorney in August 2019, before becoming interim Director of the Clinic in 2025. 
Through his work with the Community Economic Development Clinic at the Edward P. Swyer Justice Center, Professor Arena provides pro bono representation to individuals and groups from low-income communities in the Capital Region. He has guided clients through forming cooperatives, achieving nonprofit status, and raising capital and financing from traditional and alternative sources.  During his time at the law school, Professor Arena has assisted small businesses through the startup and development process, guided area farmers through purchasing land, and helped with many other projects, often with a focus on marginalized or underserved populations. 
Prior to Albany Law School, Professor Arena was an attorney with O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2009 and his B.A. in Philosophy & Economics from the University of Arizona in 2005. 
He received the Lawyers Alliance for New York’s Cornerstone Award as an Individual Honoree in 2015.

Professor Jasmin Elena Torres – Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the Housing Justice Clinic

Professor Torres is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Housing Justice Clinic at Albany Law School.
Prior to joining Albany Law School, Professor Torres was an Associate Director of Career Planning at CUNY School of Law where she advised students and alumni on navigating their legal careers, developed a student/alumni mentoring program, and organized career related campus programs. Professor Torres was previously a Senior Staff Attorney at Manhattan Legal Services, one of the largest providers of free legal services to low-income communities in New York City. She began her career at Legal Services in the Housing Unit where she represented clients in eviction defense proceedings. As a Housing Attorney, she served as a mentoring attorney for the pilot year of New York Law School's Housing Rights Clinic. She then joined the HIV/LGBTQ Advocacy Unit where she represented clients in areas including immigration, discrimination, public benefits, advance directives and name changes.
In addition to providing direct services to her clients, Professor Torres ran the mentoring program at Manhattan Legal Services and mentored pro bono attorneys who volunteered to represent clients in their name change proceedings.
Before attending law school, Professor Torres worked for the City of New York in various capacities. Professor Torres received her B.A. in Sociology from SUNY New Paltz, and her J.D. from New York Law School.